CPU Reviews & Articles

Company of Heroes Performance

Company of Heroes is another part of our CPU benchmark suite, and it offers a very demanding benchmark environment. CoH is a WW2 real-time strategy game, which again provides us with a nice change of pace from the usual FPS benchmark. We use the game's built-in performance test for all of our benchmarking. To give our AMD and Intel processors a viable test, we've increased the physics load, while dropping many of the graphics settings. This will help provide a more CPU-specific benchmark test, while ensuring that the graphics card is not the limiting factor.

Due to the much higher physics load, Company of Heroes is one of the few benchmarks that shows a definite advantage for the improved processor architectures and easily scales to higher clock speeds. This game does like the Phenom II X4 core design, and as long as we're comparing it to similarly-priced Core 2 models, processors like the Phenom II X4 810 stack up well. But as the Core i7-920's score proves, Intel owns this benchmark at the top-end.

Unreal Tournament 3 Flyby Performance

Our Unreal Tournament 3 benchmarking consists of a Flyby run in the WAR-MarketDistrict map, which was chosen due to its heavy in-game battles and sprawling indoor and outdoor locations. This provides a reliable score, and is repeatable through subsequent runs. The test resolutions remain at 1024x768, while game details have been set at 3.

Unreal Tournament 3 is one of the few real-world games where the Phenom II X4 can easily compete with Intel. The Phenom II X4 810 finishes in a near-dead heat with the Core 2 Quad Q9400, while the surprising Phenom II X3 720 comes within a hair of matching the Core 2 Quad Q9450.

World in Conflict Performance

World in Conflict is another real-time tactical war game, complete with eye-dropping visuals that are demanding enough to drop a mainstream video card in its tracks. It's a bit different from traditional RTS games, in that the war and strategy parts are put to the forefront, while the resource gathering and base construction tasks are taken out of the equation. In this test, we've used the in-game benchmarking tool, and used a standard 1024x768 resolution at Medium detail settings.

World in Conflict is another good result for AMD, as the Phenom II line competes well with the majority of Intel processors, but once we hit the Core 2 Quad Q9450 and Core i7-920, it's a different story.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Performance

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is the latest iteration of the id Software/Quake gaming line, and is set in the same basic Quake world. This is a very popular multi-player game, and makes a very consistent benchmark platform. We have used the latest 1.5 game update at 1024x768 high details, and tested with a game demo on the Canyon map.

ET: Quake Wars benchmarking is another test where the Phenom II can handle the Core 2 Quads, and the Phenom II X3 720 proves this by matching the performance of the Core 2 Quad Q9400.